February 25, 1918 – June 7, 2009

Julia Vega, legendary nanny and housekeeper for the family of Leonard Bernstein, died on June 7 of complications from stomach surgery. She was 91 years old. Up to the day of her surgery, Ms. Vega was the active housekeeper at the apartment jointly owned by the Bernstein family. Although long entitled to retirement, Ms. Vega chose to continue her myriad activities, including her sought-after cooking, her sewing and laundering, her care of birds and her prodigious horticulture.

Raised on a farm in the foothills of the Chilean Andes, Ms. Vega came to work for the Bernstein family in 1954, when the eldest Bernstein child, Jamie, was just 2. Alexander was born the following year, and Nina was born in 1962. Ms. Vega helped raise all three Bernstein children, filling in both as nanny and housekeeper when the Bernstein parents were abroad. She acquired excellent English speaking and reading skills, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen, a proud voter and an avid follower of national politics.

After the death of Felicia Montealegre Bernstein in 1978, Ms. Vega became Mr. Bernstein's live-in housekeeper at his apartment in the famous Dakota building on the Upper West Side. After Mr. Bernstein died in 1990, the Bernstein children sold the Dakota apartment and acquired a smaller apartment in the Parc Vendome building on West 56th Street. In this new apartment, Ms. Vega took on the role of elder-in-chief of the Bernstein family. Alexander Bernstein had his office there, and various friends and family members dropped by daily. Ms. Vega unfailingly supplied refreshments for board meetings, music rehearsals and all manner of activities at the apartment. Her friends traversed all walks of society, from the building doormen to Peter Jennings. Her coffee was equally strong for one and all, but only the inner circle was permitted to sample her celebrated empanadas.

Ms. Vega was renowned for her discretion. Had she chosen, she could have written the ultimate tell-all about the myriad luminaries who came through the Bernstein household over the years: everyone from Mrs. John F. Kennedy and her children, to the actor Richard Burton and his wife Elizabeth Taylor, to the Bernsteins' Dakota neighbor Rudolf Nureyev. She was a fierce defender of familial privacy in a world of persistent public scrutiny.

Ms. Vega transcended the definitions of family service, becoming a family member herself and ultimately the beacon of that family. "She was loyal beyond telling," wrote family friend Mike Nichols of Ms. Vega.

Funeral services will be held on Thursday morning, June 11, at 10 a.m. at the Church of St. Francis de Sales in Manhattan.